Searching the heart
Day 366, Tuesday, Aug. 12
Jeremiah Chapters 16 and 17
Our trust is misplaced if we trust in people rather than in God. 17:5 says, “Cursed is the one who trusts in man, who draws strength from mere flesh and whose heart turns away from the Lord.”
Then, in 17:7 the thought continues, “But blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him.”
Our heart may tell us to trust in people, but it, too, is untrustworthy.
In 17:9-10 we read, “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?
“I the Lord search the heart and examine the mind, to reward each person according to their conduct, according to what their deeds deserve.”

-Rev. Mark Fleming

Tuesday meditation

Job 20:1-11
“I loathe my very life; therefore I will give free rein to my complaint and speak out in the bitterness of my soul. I say to God: Do not declare me guilty, but tell me what charges you have against me. Does it please you to oppress me, to spurn the work of your hands, while you smile on the plans of the wicked? Do you have eyes of flesh? Do you see as a mortal sees? Are your days like those of a mortal or your years like those of a strong man, that you must search out my faults and probe after my sin—though you know that I am not guilty and that no one can rescue me from your hand?
“Your hands shaped me and made me. Will you now turn and destroy me? Remember that you molded me like clay. Will you now turn me to dust again? Did you not pour me out like milk and curdle me like cheese, clothe me with skin and flesh and knit me together with bones and sinews?

Prayer focus
Lord, let us not put our trust in people or in the whims of our hearts, but instead keep our trust only in you.